


Washed Out

by KitsuneArashi



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Alternate Ending Available, Angst, Gunshot Wounds, I'm so sorry, M/M, MCD, Paramedic!Benny, Paramedic!Dean, Soulmates, mentioned mass shooting
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-21
Updated: 2017-01-21
Packaged: 2018-09-18 23:44:31
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,825
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9408032
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/KitsuneArashi/pseuds/KitsuneArashi
Summary: Prompt: AU where your whole life you only see black and white until you receive your very first touch from your soul mate and color blooms before your eyes. The colors don't stay when you're alone but when they're there and you're touching, everything is beautiful.Chapter 2 is the same story with an alternate (no MCD) ending.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Oh god what have I done?  
> *sobs*

The world has always been grey for Dean Winchester, he's not color blind or anything, no more than the next person anyway. 

To see color a soul needs to be whole, complete. And that requires physical contact with your soulmate, at least once.  The effect doesn't last forever, it will fade over time, slowly fading back to grey over the space of a year, long distance relationships never stay long distance for long, people too eager to keep the color in their lives once they experience it, stating that the fading color is the worst feeling in the world when you can speak to the person who can bring it back, even see them online but can’t be close enough to keep it bright.

Dean disagrees, he feels like the worst feeling in the world is spending your whole life in grey, content, never really needing color, never knowing what you're missing, until the day you’re first responder to a mass shooting, and suddenly everything is in color, so bright and overwhelmingly beautiful and you have no idea how you lived without it, without  _ him, _ but that it won’t last. 

Without a shadow of a doubt it will not last, because the first color Dean Winchester ever saw was red. Red was the color of fear, the color of death and Dean wished he’d never taken this job, wished he’d never woken up this morning, he could have handled never seeing color if he knew that it would come from  _ this _ .    
  
His mind blanked and he froze, staring at the slowly spreading pool of red underneath him, soaking into the knees of his dark blue jumpsuit, the wetness making it darker. 

“Somebody help,” he whispered, unwilling to put his red stained hands on the limp form in front of him. “Help--” his voice cracked and he swallowed, trying again, “help! Someone help!!”   
  
The pounding of footsteps behind him alerted him that someone was responding to his desperate plea and he felt himself sag in relief, slumping forwards onto his hands, eyes locked on the darkening stain of someone elses blood on his skin, rather than the broken body it came from.   
  
“Dean!” It was Benny, his assigned partner and friend. “Are you hurt? Is that blood?”    
  
Dean shook his head and sucked in a gasping breath, trying to get air into his lungs to force out the words, “not hurt,” he managed, voice unsteady as he finally raised his head to look for Benny, eyes instead catching on the crumpled heap in front of him. “It’s his blood, not mine. Oh god Benny, it’s on my hands and my clothes and--”   
  
“Dean!” Benny interrupted him, cutting off his rising panic as he rushed forward, dropping to his knees to do his job, pulling a wad of gauze from his kit as he moved. “Snap out of it Dean!” he yelled harshly, pressing the gauze to the man’s side and fumbling for another. “Shit, entry wound  _ and _ exit wound, he’s bleeding out.”    
  
Dean had been a paramedic for the better part of ten years, he was good at his job and he knew what he was supposed to be doing right now, but he couldn’t force himself to stand, couldn’t stomach the thought of moving from this man’s side.    
  
“Damn it Dean!” Benny swore, releasing the gauze over the entry wound to tug Dean closer. “Take over here, keep the pressure on! Keep it together!”   
  
Satisfied that Dean was keeping the pressure on both entry and exit wound Benny leaped to his feet, rushing to yell for a stretcher and for them to  _ bring that fucking ambulance closer. _

Dean’s eyes found their way to the man’s face and he felt numb as he took it in, short, dark hair in disarray, plump full lips and a nine-o'clock shadow over a strong jawline. Dean jumped, startled, as blue eyes weakly flickered open and the man sucked in a wheezing breath that ended in a gasping cough and brought red spittle to his lips.    
  
“Green.” The man whispered, once his coughing stopped and his breathing, although labored, was under control again. “Your eyes are green.”   
  
Dean felt his eyes prickle and fought to retain his composure. “Yeah?” the man moved his head slightly in the affirmative and Dean sucked in a breath. “Well, yours are blue...”   
  
“Cas- Castiel,” the blue eyed man rasped and it took Dean a moment to understand than was his name.   
  
“Dean. Dean Winchester.” Dean introduced himself, before his brain finally snapped into gear. “You’ve been shot, Casti- Cas, don’t try to move, the ambulance is on it’s way.”   
  
“It’s alright Dean.” Castiel wheezed weakly, more a bubbling gasp that brought more blood to his lips and Dean let out a strangled sob at the sight. “It’ll be alright.”   
  
Dean kept the pressure against Castiel’s gunshot wound as best he could, knowing even as he did so that it was futile as he watched the red stain across Castiel’s shirt spread, the puddle underneath them growing with every rapidly weakening beat of Castiel’s heart. 

Dean would swear that he could pinpoint the second Castiel’s heart stopped beating, it was like the colors in the world, despite being brand new, became lighter, washed out and he let out a keening cry, hands dropping limply to his sides as he bowed his head.

That was how Benny found him, head bowed under the weight of the grief he was feeling for a man he never had the chance to know, a soul mate he never got to love. “He’s gone brother.” Benny said softly, laying a hand on Dean’s shoulder.    
  
Dean slowly pulled himself together and allowed Benny to pull him to his feet, stepping quickly away from the puddle of blood around them, he looked up to meet Benny’s eyes and felt his tenuous grasp on his emotions shattering. “Benny--” his voice cracked and he swallowed, trying again, “Benny, your eyes are blue too.”   
  
_ No, _ Dean thinks to himself, looking down at the untidy dark brown mop of hair and glassy blue eyes,  _ the worst feeling in the world is seeing in color and knowing the other half of your soul is dead. _ Knowing that the color will slowly fade away, too slowly, torturing him every day with every shade of blue he sees.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm so sorry.


	2. Alternate Ending

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Alright so I wanted to do an alternate ending because I broke my own heart with the other one. 
> 
> If you read the first one, it's a bit repetitive at first since this is an alternate _ending_ and all.

The world has always been grey for Dean Winchester, he's not color blind or anything, no more than the next person anyway.

To see color a soul needs to be whole, complete. And that requires physical contact with your soulmate, at least once.  The effect doesn't last forever, it will fade over time, slowly fading back to grey over the space of a year, long distance relationships never stay long distance for long, people too eager to keep the color in their lives once they experience it, stating that the fading color is the worst feeling in the world when you can speak to the person who can bring it back, even see them online but can’t be close enough to keep it bright.

Dean disagrees, he feels like the worst feeling in the world is spending your whole life in grey, content, never really needing color, never knowing what you're missing, until the day you’re first responder to a mass shooting, and suddenly everything is in color, so bright and overwhelmingly beautiful and you have no idea how you lived without it, without _him,_ but that it won’t last.

Without a shadow of a doubt it will not last, because the first color Dean Winchester ever saw was red. Red was the color of fear, the color of death and Dean wished he’d never taken this job, wished he’d never woken up this morning, he could have handled never seeing color if he knew that it would come from _this_ .  
  
His mind blanked and he froze, staring at the slowly spreading pool of red underneath him, soaking into the knees of his dark blue jumpsuit, the wetness making it darker.

“Somebody help,” he whispered, unwilling to put his red stained hands on the limp form in front of him. “Help--” his voice cracked and he swallowed, trying again, “help! Someone help!!”  
  
The pounding of footsteps behind him alerted him that someone was responding to his desperate plea and he felt himself sag in relief, slumping forwards onto his hands, eyes locked on the darkening stain of someone elses blood on his skin, rather than the broken body it came from.  
  
“Dean!” It was Benny, his assigned partner and friend. “Are you hurt? Is that blood?”  
  
Dean shook his head and sucked in a gasping breath, trying to get air into his lungs to force out the words, “not hurt,” he managed, voice unsteady as he finally raised his head to look for Benny, eyes instead catching on the crumpled heap in front of him. “It’s his blood, not mine. Oh god Benny, it’s on my hands and my clothes and--”  
  
“Dean!” Benny interrupted him, cutting off his rising panic as he rushed forward, dropping to his knees to do his job, pulling a wad of gauze from his kit as he moved. “Snap out of it Dean!” he yelled harshly, pressing the gauze to the man’s side and fumbling for another. “Shit, entry wound _and_ exit wound, he’s bleeding out.”  
  
Dean had been a paramedic for the better part of ten years, he was good at his job and he knew what he was supposed to be doing right now, but he couldn’t force himself to stand, couldn’t stomach the thought of moving from this man’s side.  
  
“Damn it Dean!” Benny swore, releasing the gauze over the entry wound to tug Dean closer. “Take over here, keep the pressure on! Keep it together!”  
  
Satisfied that Dean was keeping the pressure on both entry and exit wound Benny leaped to his feet, rushing to yell for a stretcher and for them to _bring that fucking ambulance closer._

Dean’s eyes found their way to the man’s face and he felt numb as he took it in, short, dark hair in disarray, plump full lips and a nine-o'clock shadow over a strong jawline. Dean jumped, startled, as blue eyes weakly flickered open and the man sucked in a wheezing breath that ended in a gasping cough and brought red spittle to his lips.  
  
“Green.” The man whispered, once his coughing stopped and his breathing, although labored, was under control again. “Your eyes are green.”  
  
Dean felt his eyes prickle and fought to retain his composure. “Yeah?” the man moved his head slightly in the affirmative and Dean sucked in a breath. “Well, yours are blue...”  
  
“Cas- Castiel,” the blue eyed man rasped and it took Dean a moment to understand than was his name.  
  
“Dean. Dean Winchester.” Dean introduced himself, before his brain finally snapped into gear. “You’ve been shot, Casti- Cas, don’t try to move, the ambulance is on it’s way.”  
  
“It’s alright Dean.” Castiel wheezed weakly, more a bubbling gasp that brought more blood to his lips and Dean let out a strangled sob at the sight. “It’ll be alright.”

Dean kept the pressure against Castiel’s gunshot wound as best he could, knowing even as he did so that it was futile as he watched the red stain across Castiel’s shirt spread, the puddle underneath them growing with every rapidly weakening beat of Castiel’s heart.  
  
The crunch of running footsteps against the pavement behind him snapped his head up, looking around so fast he felt a twinge in his neck. Benny was running back to him with another medic, someone else was leading a slow moving ambulance through the crowd to be as close as possible. Dean watched as some of the police on the scene cleared the way for the ambulance to get out quickly, everything was coming together and he breathed out harshly, a bubble of something that might have been hope rising in his chest.  
  
"Ready Dean?" Benny asked, tearing open a packet of Evicel and shifting into position to apply it. Dean nodded mutely and pulled the gauze away from Castiel's side to allow his partner to get the hemostatic agent into the wound shouting for the stretcher as soon as he was done and Dean had reapplied the pressure with fresh gauze that another of the paramedics had handed to him.

Once they got the pat slide underneath Castiel's back and shifted him swiftly from the ground onto the stretcher, Dean leaped to his feet and made for the ambulance. Castiel's breaths were labored and shallow as they put the ventilator on him, heart rate monitor being clipped on even as Benny slammed the doors closed and slapped the back of the van to say they were good to go.  
  
Dean had never been so tense riding with a patient to the hospital before, counting the seconds between each breath and keeping a keen eye on the heart rate monitor while they moved, their imminent arrival at the hospital was simultaneously a relief and enough to send him almost spinning back into a panic attack, the knowledge that he'd have to let Castiel out of his sight for surgery nearly too much for him to take.

The second they pulled up to the hospital things were moving again, and Dean was running to keep up as they wheeled Castiel in for surgery, talking fast to the team who would be working on him and telling them all he knew. "Alright, thanks Dean." The nurse said as they closed in on the double doors to the room they'd prepped ahead of their arrival and Dean blanched as he felt like floor was pulled out from underneath him.  
  
"Wait!" He reached out to grab the nurse's arm, lowering his hand when he caught sight of the blood that still filled the grooves in his skin. "He's my soulmate," he mumbled softly, once she'd turned back to face him.  
  
Her face softened and she looked back towards the doors, catching sight of the top of Castiel's head as the rest of the team kept moving, "you won't be heading back out then." It wasn't a question and after a moment of examining his face she nodded to herself in confirmation, "we'll do our best, Dean. Go change, wash the blood off. I'll come find you with news."  
  
Dean was glad that he kept a change of clothes in his locker and he relaxed minutely at the comforting feel of his Led Zeppelin shirt against his skin, even if his jeans chafed as he paced since he hadn't had spare underwear among his things. It had been almost three hours and he was sure that, if it took much longer, he was going to pace a hole into the floor, no other family had come for Castiel and Dean's nerves were fried, frequent updates from the nurses or not.  
  
The doors creaked open and his head snapped up even as he rushed forwards, eager for news. It was a different nurse from earlier and Dean's eagerness for news quailed a little at the possibility that it was bad. "He's out of surgery, he lost a lot of blood." Dean nodded, impatient, _he knew that already._ "We won't know for sure until he wakes up, but..." she trailed off with a shrug, the knowledge that she was talking to a colleague, and that platitudes would be unwelcome, giving her no more to say on the matter.  
  
"Can I see him?" Dean begged in a rush, holding his breath until she nodded, finally smiling.  
  
"You might as well." She allowed, waiting as he fell into step beside her, before she led the way down the hall. "His brother is on his way from London so he won't be here for a while, and I'm sure it would be better for him not to wake up alone."  
  
Castiel's room was just like every other room in the hospital, but the constant beep of the heart monitor was one of the best sounds that Dean had ever heard, the steady rise and fall of Castiel's chest as he breathed unassisted enough to nearly buckle Dean's knees with relief. He dropped himself bodily into a chair, barely managing to drag it closer to the bed so he could reach for Castiel's hand before his legs could no longer keep him upright.  
  
The contact of Castiel's skin against his made everything around him suddenly brighter and that, more than anything, allowed him to relax enough that he could lay his head against the side of the bed and rest, slipping into a dreamless sleep.  
  
Dean woke to fingers tracing the freckles on his face and he opened his eyes slowly, blinking into the bright white of the room, the hand pulled away suddenly and he sat up, meeting tired blue eyes. "Cas!"  
  
Castiel smiled weakly and raised his hand to give a weak wave. "Hello Dean."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> That's it, that's the end. Hope it's a little better.


End file.
